


if you ask, i'll tell you (so please don't ask)

by Curlscat



Category: The Sisters Grimm - Michael Buckley
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curlscat/pseuds/Curlscat
Summary: Jake and Will aren't on a date, exactly, so of course it's fine if Snow shows up. Of course it's fine. Except for how it's not.For the prompt: The mountains are calling so I must skedaddle





	if you ask, i'll tell you (so please don't ask)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [advisortotheadvisor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/advisortotheadvisor/gifts).



Jake is meeting Charming for lunch. They haven’t made plans or anything, but, well, it’s Thursday, and for a few months now, they’ve both sort of happened to be getting lunch at The Blue Plate Special on Thursdays, and it’s become a Thing. Or maybe just a thing, no capital T.

It’s a beautiful day, as far as February goes. It snowed a few days ago, and the sun is shining bright and cold, making the snow sparkle. If you don’t look too closely at the edges of the road, where things are mostly mud and gravel, Ferryport Landing looks picturesque. The Blue Plate Special, too, looks like a diner straight off a postcard, all chrome and glass and bright red paneling.

Jake parks the jalopy and gives her a loving pat on the hood on the way out. It’s amazing that she’s still running, despite everything that his mom has put her through. Now that he’s home more often, he’s started giving the car more regular tune-ups, and he thinks, if he plays his cards right, he can get her up and running again. He’ll even do it the long way, instead of just using a spell or two. His mom would like that.

Inside, Jake is hit with a blast of hot air, and he looks around for Will, unwrapping the scarf from his neck. The heat in the jalopy still isn’t working, and he’s bundled up well against the cold.

There’s Will, seated at the far end of the counter, up by the far wall and the little hallway that leads to the bathrooms and the kitchen. Jake gives him a bright smile and heads over to join him.

Will smiles back at him. It’s a much more reserved smile, but of course it is. Will would never be so uncouth as to  _ show his teeth _ when he smiles. It’s a genuine look, and that’s what matters.

Jake hangs his coat up on the wall next to Will, stuffing his scarf, hat, and gloves into one of the pockets. The coat, hung directly on top of Charming’s, is getting into Will’s space a little bit. Will gives him a brief, aggrieved look, then says, “I ordered you a coffee.”

Jake wonders, ever so briefly, if he’ll ever be able to think of coffee without thinking about Briar. Maybe not. Today is a good day, though, so he smirks a little at the way Will has to sit on the side of his stool to keep from getting coat sleeve all up in his face, and sits down next to him. Their shoulders brush. Will is even warmer than the rest of the room, and Jake finds himself relaxing into the accidental touch.

Maybe he leans into it, a little, but he’s not thinking about that. Every interaction with Will feels… tentative, fragile. Like Jake is handling something precious, and if he goes into this too roughly, if he even tries to  _ name _ it, that will be the end.

Will has a plate from the salad bar in front of him, and Jake snags a tomato off of it, mostly succeeding in not getting dressing on his fingers. Will makes a face, but doesn’t say anything.

Jake orders, and their food comes out at the same time. (Does this officially make them regulars? Probably.) Will got an omelette, even though it’s well past breakfast time and the afternoon cook, in Jake’s opinion, is not nearly as good at hash browns as the morning one. Jake picked something random off the burger menu, and it comes out hot and greasy and far too tall to fit into the average human mouth. It appears to have both avocado and a fried egg on top of the patty.

Jake may have made a mistake.

Will laughs a little in disbelief at Jake’s food, but he still takes the offered bite. Juice dribbles onto his chin, and Jake tries hard not to stare at it.

Instead, he says, “You’ve got a little, um,” and points, reaching out and drawing back tentatively with his own napkin. Then, when Will just looks at him, he very carefully wipes off Will’s lower lip and chin. Their skin doesn’t touch, but it still feels very, very intimate.

This is when Snow appears.

Jake knows it’s Snow because Will looks at the door and goes stiff. He’s managed, somehow, to learn Will’s expressions, and that one, caught between longing, fear, and something angry? It belongs to Snow.

He’s not jealous (and even if he was, he wouldn’t dare name it so), but he does ache for Will every time he sees that look.

Jake draws back the napkin and turns to look at Snow. He gives her the best smile he can manage.

“Hi, boys,” she says, even though she’s only looking at Will. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

They’re broken up, they’re never getting back together, Will told him so right before he made it abundantly clear that he never wanted to talk about it again, and Jake still feels like he’s in the middle of a private moment, so sure that he’s never going to be able to compare to a love that’s written into the very fabric of your existence.

Will is saying something about the diner. It sounds inane and stilted, and Jake doesn’t process it properly.

He has to get out of here, has to escape the tension between Snow and Will, has to let them have this again--

“Well,” he says, loudly and abruptly, interrupting one of them--both of them, probably-- “the mountains are calling and I must skedaddle!”

He pushes off the counter and stands, then reaches around Will for his coat, trying to keep his face stiff and ignore the fact that Snow and Will have finally stopped staring at each other to look at him, baffled. He’s definitely blushing. Stupid german blush gene.

“You haven’t even started eating,” Will says. He sounds… disappointed?

“Too bad, gotta go, I’ve got--important. Y’know. Things. To do.”

“In the mountains,” Snow says slowly.

“Yup,” Jake says He stuffs his hands into his gloves. One of them goes on backwards, so he pulls it off and tries again.

“In February,” Snow says, still sounding confused and a little concerned.

G-d, did her seriously say that? What a dork. Will’s definitely not going to want--

Well.

Anyway.

He gets his gloves on properly and starts wrapping his scarf around his neck. “When the call for adventure hits, you’ve gotta listen, y’know?” he says, trying to sound cheerful and nonchalant instead of awkward and uncomfortable and desperate to escape. Maybe he’ll just wrap his whole face in his scarf.

“Can’t say I’ve ever experienced that,” Snow says, She’s eyeing him oddly as he wraps his hat over his face, as if she can’t figure out just why he’s acting like this.

“You can’t wait half an hour?” Will asks, and he’s switched from confused and disappointed to almost sad.

Honestly, did neither of them feel the way their tension was filling up the whole building, suffocating everyone else? And  _ now _ Will wants him to sta? For more of  _ that _ ? No thank you.

“Nope, must go right now, gotta visit those… mountains. Y’know, all those mountains. Calling me.” Jake gestures vaguely in the direction of Mount Taurus.

Which also happens to be the direction of his house.

His blush fires up stronger than ever.

“I wish you’d stay,” Will says, still sad.

This wish coincides with their waitress, a woman Jake has never taken much notice of but who’s here fairly often (of course she is, it’s her job), comes by to offer to top off their coffees.

Jake, very abruptly, takes off his scarf and gloves and sits back down.

Oh,  _ dammit _ .

He glares at the waitress, whose nametag reads  _ Maureen B _ and says, “Only until the end of lunch, right?”

Maureen B, formerly  _ Blue Phara _ , AKA The Blue Fairy, gives him an apologetic smile and says, “I’ll comp your dessert, honey.”

Will and Snow both look confused, but Will also looks less mournful now, and they’re still not  _ staring _ at each other like that, so Jake guesses he can stay.

Not that he has much choice about it.

He eats a french fry in the most resigned way possible.

“So no mountains, then?” Snow asks. Her tone is a little teasing.

“They can wait, I guess,” Jake says. He looks out the window longingly at his car.

Will eats one of Jake’s fries, absently, looking at him like he’s trying to figure something out.

This is what clues Snow in. Jake sees because he’s still sitting three quarters of the wrong way around on his stool, looking at Snow and Will. Snow watches Will take one of Jake’s fries, watches Jake watch it. She looks at the bite taken out of Jake’s burger, and Jake can almost  _ see _ her remembering Will saying “you haven’t even started eating yet,” can see her understand--

“Am I interrupting something?” she asks.

Here’s the thing: Jake  _ likes _ Snow. He’s kind of mad about the way she treated Will, sure, especially in the wake of how long Will waited for her, and how she wasn’t willing to do the same. But he likes her. She’s funny, she’s a good fighter, she’s great with his nieces and even with Pinocchio and Puck, who are both difficult in radically different ways. He wants to be her friend.

But he also very much wants to tell her to go away, and to stay away from Will. It’s not jealousy, exactly. That would be simpler. Instead, it’s, sure, a little jealous, but also protective, because Snow hurts Will every time they’re in the same room, just by being there, and by their not being together. And on top of that it’s just awkward.

So he doesn’t say _ yes _ , doesn’t tell her to go away and let them have this thing, this casual almost-accidental meetup that Jake would never dare call a  _ date _ .

Will, though, is giving Snow an apologetic smile, and Jake catches himself staring at it.

His mouth almost drops open when Will says, “A little, actually. It was good to see you, though.”

Snow glances between them, at Jake looking gobsmacked and probably more than a little hopeful, joyous even, and then over at Will, who isn’t looking at Jake but isn’t looking at Snow, either, anymore. She gives them both a sad little smile.

“Right,” Snow says. “I think Rapunzel’s here, anyway. Bye.”

She leaves, and Jake turns around on his stool so he’s facing the counter again. He maneuvers a bite out of his overlarge burger and wipes the grease off his chin with the same napkin he used for Will’s. He takes his time chewing.

Then, “You didn’t have to do that,” he says. “Send her away for me, I mean.” He looks at Will out of the corner of his eye.

Will is calmly spreading jam on his toast. He looks at Jake, though, directly at Jake, and Jake turns towards him without meaning to.

“Well,” Will says. “I wanted to. This… I mean… it’s  _ our _ lunch, isn’t it?”

Jake leans into him, because their arms are touching again, and Will-- Will  _ chose _ him, over Snow, over that line Bunny wrote into the core of his being, Will chose-- well, not Jake, not exactly, because what Will chose was distance, and agency. But every second Will isn’t looking at Snow and  _ is _ looking at Jake, that’s a moment that Will is giving Jake. A moment that Will decided to give him.

“Yeah,” he says with a small smile. He’s looking at Will out of the corner of his eye again, but it’s not surreptitious this time. It’s shy, and maybe just barely flirtatious. “It’s ours.”


End file.
